Internet Drama

Sometimes I can still be a superhero to my kids. For example, I can swiftly respond to this cry for help:

“Eeeek! There’s a spider in my room!”

I’ve handled this type of situation many times, and not to brag too much, but I’m pretty good at resolving this situation. I even have a special air gun that captures the bugs and allows me to set them free outside our house.

“Can you bring me a glass of water with ice?”

This type of request requires more agility than skill, as I need to descend and ascend steps and deliver the glass of water to one of my kids.

“Looks like the Internet is down.”

Like other cries for help, I’ve responded many times, and so I know how to fix this problem. I’ve been fixing Internet issues since my modem dial-up days over 30 years ago. With our new devices, it’s even easier. So when this cry for help came in two weeks ago, I simply unplugged the modem, waited ten seconds, and plugged it back in. The Internet, however, was still down.

Let’s call the cable company providing us Internet, Cable Company C. C has a fantastic process to troubleshoot and fix Internet problems. I went to their website and accessed their online chat service where I can ask any questions. After entering my phone number into the chatbot discussion, I learned that there are no outages in my area. That’s good to know. They also provided me with a phone number for their service department that I can text with and troubleshoot further.

I moved on to what I am assuming is Level 2 support. Although this text service is also automated (What happened to talking with a real person?), it was pretty sophisticated. After entering my phone number, it performed even more advanced troubleshooting and remotely rebooted my modem. Still no Internet. This texting automaton then forwarded our text conversation to a real person. The text conversation continued with this real person, who performed still more more advanced troubleshooting, and yet, no Internet. This Level 3 support person texted me a phone number I could call. I called Level 4 support, spoke with a skilled technician, who after accessing my account with my phone number, tried everything, and yet, still no Internet. He scheduled a technician to visit the next day to fix the problem. I can wait a day. Nobody came. I called up upset, the person apologized, assured me someone would be there the next day, and still, nobody came.

After four days of no Internet, and me spending hours on the phone and troubleshooting, the issue was finally resolved. Why did it take so long? After all, they had what appeared to be an amazing troubleshooting process.

The problem, I learned after, was a data issue. Or, to be more specific, a data modeling issue. (By the way, most issues in this world are data modeling issues. Just read the news headlines if you need proof.)

We live Arizona during most of the year and in New Jersey for the summer. I did not know that Cable Company C, which provides our Internet in New Jersey, and let’s call them Cable Company S, which provides our Internet in Arizona, are both owned by parent company A. The data model, therefore, should look something like this model, which I built with Ellie (learn more here: Ellie.ai):

Each Customer may own many Customer Locations. For example, Steve may own a location in Arizona and New Jersey. My phone number, which they asked me for each time I entered a new level of support, is how they identify me. That is, the Customer’s primary key. The primary key for Customer Location is both my phone number and some additional identifier, which could be an account number because they asked me for an account number that I did not know and therefore supply. There is more to the model above yet at a minimum, this model would allow the technicians to recognize that my phone number would bring up two locations and troubleshoot the correct location.

The problem was that they kept troubleshooting the wrong location! For example, whenever the modem would get rebooted, it was the Arizona modem getting rebooted instead of in New Jersey where I was having the outage. In fact, the technicians arrived at our Arizona location twice! The data model really looked more like this:

They have the concept of an Account that is specific to a Company. So, for example, Account Number 123 might exist in Cable Company C and also in Cable Company S, yet be two separate accounts. In addition, although my phone number was correctly tied to both of my accounts, only my first account came up and not the second (maybe appearing alphabetical?). I later learned that they even had my first name as “Steve” in Cable Company C and “Steven” in Cable Company S!

I have worked on many data integration projects over the years, and so I first thought the data issues were due to this being a new merger. Now that I had my Internet back, I did a quick search and learned that A bought C and S back in 2016! They should have their integration issues solved by now!

What’s even more frustrating is that their efficient processes fell apart because of poor data practices. As a result, they lost money and time, and frustrated a long-time customer. In fact, I have decided to leave both C and S at the end of the summer.

It is so important to get the data model right – everything builds on the data model. A sound design leads to working processes, great business decisions, and happy customers.

I’ll stick to getting rid of spiders and hope I never have another “bug” with my Internet!